[Deckard]

Strangelet, I've been meaning to respond to this thread since you posted it. The truth is, despite this being something I've frequently wondered myself, I still don't know how to begin to answer adequately. Not through lack of evidence, rather there just seem to be so many factors and facets to consider.

Altruism/empathy v selfishness; the gut v the mind, intolerance v tolerance. Even trying to ascertain whether we're becoming more or less intelligent as a species is hampered by which aspects of intelligence we select (reasoning capacity? Attention span?), which societies we judge, which socio-economic group within those societies we focus on...

I hear what my grandparents were like - guided by prejudice, loving but simplistic folk. My nieces and nephews are all far more advanced - socially and intellectually - than I was at their ages. I read how intellect was respected at the beginning of the last century, of how much importance the working class placed in educating themselves in whatever way they could - and compare it to today's zeleb-magazine reading culture. I look at how journalism has devolved from well-funded investigativation, actual reporting, to brain-in-neutral churnalism. I look at how, generally speaking, society appears to possess less empathy these days than before. Yet we are undoubtedly more tolerant and enlightened in other ways. All these things just send out mixed signals, and I haven't the foggiest idea how to begin to put them into some sort of order.

About the only thing I can say with some confidence is that capitalism appears to be at the heart of much of what I personally view as a marked mental and moral decline.

Though I offer no alternative!

That first link is most certainly food for thought though, and a (genuinely) great polemic.